Proctorio Announces Industry Record Lowest Bandwidth Requirements for Test Takers

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., March 16, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- In a move designed to increase access to digital education, Proctorio, the leading online proctoring software, has announced a new breakthrough that lowers bandwidth requirements for their service to a new industry low 0.189Mbps while improving the quality of the recording. This update has been in production and adopted since January of this year.

As more universities and institutions moved online during the pandemic, a strong and dependable internet connection became a dividing line between the digital haves and have-nots. Services like Proctorio - that operate with much lower bandwidth requirements - seek to bridge that gap.

"So many of the technological advances being trumpeted today focus on improving the lives of affluent big city dwellers," said Mike Olsen, Founder and CEO of Proctorio. "Faster food delivery. Faster online gaming. Faster pickup times. Faster is great. But what about reliability? While some parts of our world are zooming faster into the future, we are also looking at how we can make sure we don't leave people behind."

By making adjustments to its already proprietary streaming format, Proctorio enables the computer to run more efficiently during the exam. It lightens the CPU's load, reduces power usage and decreases bandwidth requirements. It does this while simultaneously making the quality of the recording better.

Proctorio administered over 25 million tests in 2021. Of those, there were roughly 80,000 unsuccessful test start attempts due to bandwidth requirements. Although that is less than one half of one percent, it's still a meaningful amount of test starts where a stronger connection was needed, likely delaying their exam and causing stress.

See Proctorio Bandwidth Graph on right.

An interesting data point, 270 test attempts were made at speeds slower than dial up, shining a spotlight on the need for higher speed internet access around the world.

Bandwidth connection requirements are always a concern for any sort of digital learning environment. The EdTech industry especially is known to have very high minimum requirements. Given the company already had the lowest connection requirement, an analysis of three competitors found they would have struggled with as high as 13 times the number of exams Proctorio successfully administered:

Competitor H: 465,313 more failed exam attempts
Competitor U: 839,508 more failed exam attempts
Competitor E: 1,023,642 more failed exam attempts **

**One of Proctorio's competitors would have been technologically incapable of connecting students to their tests over a million times.

See Proctorio Bandwidth Closeup on right.

The January update improves Proctorio's performance by another 54%.

"Hardware should not be a burden to furthering personal or professional growth," said Milan Dordevic, Proctorio's Director of Product Development. "Our service was designed intentionally to be compatible with devices even ten years old so students don't need to buy a new laptop every year in order to get an education. This dramatic lowering of necessary bandwidth levels the playing field that much more."

Proctorio is the recipient of several major awards for excellence recently. They were the top Arizona company named to Forbes Magazine's Best Startup Employers and were also cited by Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 and GSV's EdTech 150. CEO Mike Olsen will be speaking at the ASU + GSV Summit on April 4th on a panel entitled "Show Your Work: Protecting Academic Integrity in an Online Environment."

About Proctorio
Proctorio is a comprehensive learning integrity platform that offers identity verification and remote proctoring services to over 2,500+ higher education, K-12, corporate, and federal institutions around the world. Proctorio's suite of Lock Down, Recording, and Verification options allow exam administrators to customize exams for their needed level of exam security. Proctorio currently serves 4 million active weekly users and has proctored over 50+ million exams since 2013 while maintaining a 99.991% uptime. Learn more about Proctorio here.

Media Contact

David Lux, Proctorio, 310-993-9888, [email protected]

SOURCE Proctorio